US could access EU data retention information

Found on EUobserver on Friday, 12 May 2006
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US authorities can get access to EU citizens' data on phone calls, sms' and emails, giving a recent EU data-retention law much wider-reaching consequences than first expected, reports Swedish daily Sydsvenskan.

The EU data retention bill, passed in February after much controversy and with implementation tabled for late 2007, obliges telephone operators and internet service providers to store information on who called who and who emailed who for at least six months, aimed at fighting terrorism and organised crime.

The US delegation to the meeting "indicated that it was considering approaching each [EU] member state to ensure that the data collected on the basis of the recently adopted Directive on data retention be accessible to them," according to the notes of the meeting.

In the US itself meanwhile, fury has broken out in the US congress after reports revealed that the Bush administration covertly collected domestic phone records of tens of millions of US citizens since the attacks in New York on 11 September 2001.

President George Bush did not deny the allegations in a television statement last night, but insisted that his administration had not broken any laws.

As if it's not enough that the US screws its own people, now they try to spy on everybody else who is lucky enough not to live there. Now you have to switch to encrypted VoIP calls routed through TOR and GnuPG encrypted emails just to get your privacy back. Like they would catch any seriously organized terrorist this way; all the "protection from terrorists" only was successful so far because Bin Laden didn't try anything new. You can claim everything as long as nobody proves you wrong.